This project is close to home for me. As an autistic adult, I’ve noticed an alarming pattern of self loathing and toxic shame from my autistic friends and the community as a whole. Ignorance about neurodivergence has led to constant microinvalidations that eat away at confidence and self worth. Growing up, I’ve seen countless graphics about autism and noticed a pattern. Overused tropes like the puzzle piece and child/parental subject matter left a blind-spot in the discussion. Focusing on a teen and early adult audience, I created an illustrated poster campaign showing how microinvalidations make the social deficits autistics face even worse. This project taught me a lot about research methods, outside the box thinking, and custom assets, as custom brushes were made to achieve a pointillism effect for the first poster.